Filed under: Private equity, Merrill Lynch (MER), Entrepreneurs

Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) Chief Executive Stan O’Neal, who is holding onto his job by a thread, likely will sell the Wall Street firm’s 20% stake in my old employer, Bloomberg LP, to shore up his company’s bottom line. Heck, O’Neal’s successor probably will sell it as well.

If I was a betting man, I would bet that company founder and current New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg will probably buy out Merrill. Maybe a private equity player would buy the Merrill interest, reportedly valued at $20 billion, but I’m not sure Bloomberg would be willing to cede any management control to an outside investor. The same goes for a huge media company such as News Corp (NYSE: NWS) or Time Warner (NYSE: TWX).

What was obvious to even the lowliest peons at Bloomberg — including me — is that the company really likes being private. Management was always willing to try almost anything to keep people glued to their Bloomberg terminals even if it didn’t earn an immediate profit. Legend has it, one time Mike Bloomberg noticed that people were away from their Bloombergs and learned that a major sporting event was going on — he decided on the spot that the company would provide sports news. I have no idea whether this story is true, but knowing the company’s corporate culture, it sure seems to be on the mark.

Continue reading Media World: Merrill likely to sell Bloomberg stake to Mayor Mike

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.